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                                                                                COVER STORIES, Page 34

SPECIAL REPORT: THE NEW RUSSIA

A Miracle Wrapped in Danger


Democracy has come to Russia, but the imperfect and fragile
system must still achieve three revolutions at once

By STROBE TALBOTT


    "It's winter here," said Boris Yeltsin to Bill Clinton in
a telephone conversation just after the U.S. election. "And you
know, winter is always hard for us."

    The President of Russia was not just talking about the
weather; he was acknowledging a force of history. The Romanovs'
throne, Alexander Kerensky's provisional government and Mikhail
Gorbachev's Soviet Union all came crashing down when the snows
were swirling, the days were cold and the nights were long. In
each case the implications for the world -- and the U.S. -- were
immense.

    Now it is Yeltsin's turn to contend with the conspiring
adversities of nature, economics and politics. Once again, the
whole world has a huge stake in the outcome.

    When temperatures fall in Russia, food is harder to find
in the cities and prices rise. The sting in the air makes
shopping even more of a hardship. As citizens trudge from store
to store in the dark, their frustration is, as it has always
been, aimed at their leader in the Kremlin. But unlike the Czars
and the General Secretaries before him, Yeltsin does not rely
on terror to enforce the silence and passivity of the populace.
Instead, he has to address its grievances and contend with its
elected representatives.

    Real democracy, however primitive and messy, has come to
Russia. That achievement, imperfect and fragile though it is,
is nothing less than a miracle. But it is a miracle wrapped in
danger inside a dilemma.

    Yeltsin is sometimes said to be presiding over the Second
Russian Revolution. But that understates and oversimplifies the
challenge facing him and his people. Russia is actually in the
throes of three transformations at once: from totalitarianism
to democracy, from a command economy to a free market, and from
a multinational empire to a nation-state. Any one of these would
be arduous enough all by itself. Undertaking three revolutions
simultaneously with so little warning and preparation has
overloaded the circuits.

    After all, the newly independent U.S. wrestled for decades
with the concepts of constitutionality, federalism and
individual rights. It also had to fight a devastating civil war
before it could claim to be a fully representative democracy.
For its part, Russia is trying to cast off, virtually overnight,
the legacy of more than a thousand years of absolutism; and it
is trying to create, virtually from scratch, the institutions,
traditions and political culture associated with the rule of law
and popular government. No wonder that this, more than any in
years, is the winter of Russia's discontent.

    Nor can Moscow count even its modest accomplishments
secure. For months there have been warnings of a showdown
between reformists and reactionaries. Russians and Russia
watchers alike talk about "the December scenario." The opening
act will take place during the Congress of People's Deputies
that begins this week. Yeltsin's opponents are expected to
launch an all-out offensive to restrict his personal authority,
reverse his main policies and remove his key ministers. In the
scarier versions of the scenario, the maneuvers against the
Russian government could be a prelude to a parliamentary
upheaval or even a putsch.

    Yeltsin goes into this week's meeting full of fight and
determination. His critics and foes have not closed ranks behind
an alternative program or leader. He has already proved both
tough and deft. Former communist that he is, he may follow
Lenin's old motto of two steps forward, one step back: a few
tactical concessions to keep reform on course. He will have to
take care to avoid Gorbachev's fatal mistakes of excessive
vacillation and indecisiveness, but a certain amount of
compromise and even inconsistency is necessary, given the
complexity and magnitude of what the President is up against.

    Yeltsin has had less than a year to grapple with the
consequences of a seven-decade experiment in economic absurdity.
He has applied remedies that are as painful as they are
necessary. Because of the political revolution, there are new
limits to the sacrifices that a leader can demand of the
citizenry in the name of the economic revolution -- and new
opportunities for mischief making by opposition groups. Knowing
this, Yeltsin has tacked back and forth, endeavoring to skirt
both mass unemployment and galloping inflation. For the time
being at least, he has decided that inflation is the lesser of
two evils. But in the long run it could be the greater. The
evaporation of a currency's value means the eradication of
personal savings, the resort to barter, the end of any hope of
foreign investment, the loss of public confidence in
governmental authority and a political climate conducive to the
ambitions and intrigues of would-be dictators.

    The parallel to the doomed Weimar Republic, where hyper
inflation paved the way for Adolf Hitler, is much on the minds
of Russians these days. They speak openly of their fear that
Yeltsin will be swept aside and power will pass to an unholy
alliance of the so-called Reds and Browns, unreconstructed
communists with a nostalgia for the bad old days of Soviet power
and Russian chauvinists with distinctly fascistic tendencies.

    That nightmare is more likely to come about if the economy
continues to deteriorate. That is why the industrialized
democracies, led by the U.S., must assemble a more generous and
potent package of emergency-assistance measures, including
incentives for Russia to climb back aboard the wagon of monetary
and fiscal temperance. Otherwise there could be a January or
February sequel to the December scenario: in the name of
restoring social order and averting economic ruin, a cabal of
hard-liners might seize power. This time, unlike the high summer
of August 1991, the conspirators might be able to count on
significant support, or at least acquiescence, from a cold,
angry, exhausted people.

    Even the most retrograde post-Yeltsin leaders imaginable
would have neither the desire nor the ability to threaten vital
Western interests the way the pre-Gorbachev ones did. Yes, they
would still have a formidable nuclear arsenal, but the new men
in the Kremlin would no doubt affirm the end of the cold war,
if only because they could not afford to start it up again.
They would disavow any claims to Eastern Europe, not to mention
far-flung leftist client states in Africa, Asia and Latin
America.

    But Russia's behavior toward other parts of the old Soviet
Union is a different and altogether more troubling matter. In
trying to redefine their own nationhood, many Russians have not
yet been able to accept the idea that the 14 non-Russian
republics of the U.S.S.R. are today independent foreign
countries. Russian politicians have even coined a new phrase --
the near abroad -- to distinguish between the former republics
and the rest of the world. The Russian sense of special rights
and responsibilities in the near abroad is more than a matter
of imperial postpartum depression. Some 25 million ethnic
Russians live outside Russia but within the borders of the old
union. The dominant local nationalities now treat these Russians
as second-class citizens or worse.

    The notion that Russia has a mission to protect these
kinsmen is by no means confined to Reds, Browns or crazies. It
is a mainstream sentiment and a powerful force in the
deliberations of this week's Congress. The U.S., the West
Europeans and the United Nations must use their own considerable
influence with the newly independent states to protect the
rights of the Russian minorities there. Otherwise, Russia may
take matters into its own heavy hands. If so, the world would
surely suspend whatever help it is giving to any government in
Moscow, which would only deepen the crisis in Russia and
accelerate the vicious cycle of economic distress and political
extremism.

    The result might be the first full-scale international
headache for the Clinton Administration. What an irony that
would be. Clinton won election as President largely because of
the Second Russian Revolution and the end of the cold war. If
Moscow had still been the capital of the global archrival in
1992, George Bush's constant flashing of his diplomatic
credentials might have saved his campaign. But since Americans
no longer see Russia as a menace, they decided on Nov. 3 that
they could afford to replace a foreign-policy President with a
challenger, untested on the world stage, who promised to give
priority to the American economy.

    But if the U.S. is going to reap domestic dividends from
the end of the cold war, Clinton must help Yeltsin prevail on
his own home front. That means more than just coping with
cataclysms -- it means heading them off by helping Russia manage
its peaceful metamorphosis on a month-to-month, even day-to-day,
basis. And that, in turn, means Yeltsin and Clinton have a lot
more to talk about, on the phone and in person, before this
winter is over.